Francois Boulangé — © ANP
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Dutch television presenter François Boulangé has passed away. This is reported by the Dutch media. Boulangé or Mister Lingo was best known for the games program Lingo on the Dutch television channel VARA. Boulangé had been ill for some time, he was 67 years old.
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Saar Van Olmen
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Boulangé presented about 2,000 episodes of the well-known word game program between 1993 and 2000 Lingo on Dutch television. He first worked there as an editor, but when his colleagues registered him for an audition, he was allowed to take over from presenter Robert ten Brink. He was especially notable for his colorful suspenders. Then Lingo When he moved to the TROS television channel, Boulangé gave up.
The presentation was taken over by singer Nance and presenter Lucille Werner, among others. But in 2014 it was finally disposed of. In 2019, the program returned with presenter Jan Versteegh.
After his career at Lingo Boulangé became the voice of History Channel and he made corporate films with his own production house Boldface Produkties BV. He was also seen in the Dutch version of The smartest person in which he finished fourth.
There was also a rumor that the man was really just called Frans Bakker. That story is wrong.
Mister Lingo
In the meantime, well-known Dutch people reacted to his death. Robert ten Brink, his predecessor as presenter of Lingo, described him according to RTL Nieuws as a “nice, sweet person with a sense of humor.” According to him, there is only one real Mister Lingo, and that is François Boulangé. “I made the game for two years, once a week,” ten Brink told RTL. “He did it five times a week for ten years. If you don’t deserve that title by then, you’ll never earn it again.”
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